Mr. Leo's Mini-English Lesson----#2
Part of our class today was about prepositions. Prepositions are one of the eight parts of speech of the English language. (The other seven are noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, conjunction, and interjection.) The problem with learning prepositions is there are few rules; we break them most of the time; our language changes with time. For example, when I was a little boy and listened to the Red Sox on the radio, the announcer would say, "Ted Williams has forty homeruns FOR the season." In 2006, the same announcer would say, "Manny Remirez has forty homeruns ON the season." Crazy, isn't it?
The best thing to do is become familiar with a list of the most common prepositions. (I will give you one if you don't have one.) Then LISTEN to how Americans use them. In the meantime, remember that we live IN a house which is ON a street which is IN a country which is ON a continent, which is part OF the universe!..........Oh,(interjection) by the way,(prepositional phrase) I will see you AT 9:00 A.M. ON Monday....................
3 comments:
Megumi,
I know you do not like to miss class. You do not miss very many. I don't know why you should be so sad about prepositions. They are much easier to learn than finding the area of an ellipse!
Mr Leo (aka Dad),
I read your interesting English lesson ON my computer, IN my room. My cat is sitting in FRONT OF the computer screen. The TV is on ACROSS from me, and I am listening TO the weather.
In different countries, the people use prepositions a little differently. In Australia, they say something is "different TO." I learned it as "different FROM." They would say something like, "Chocolate is different TO vanilla." I would say it was different FROM vanilla. Australians are different FROM Americans. :-)
Cathy
Dear "Catherama",
Did you ever learn that "different than" is always wrong, and "different from" is always correct? It's amazing how often we hear people say, "I am different than you."
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